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To set the stage for his hometown debut this weekend, Jason Alan has made a prediction.
The magician-comic has written it down and placed it in a sealed box that is on display at Game On, a video-game store in downtown Salem. Alan isn’t revealing the prediction, but said it is based on current events.
The box will be opened Saturday night at Alan’s show at Salem Community Theatre. Only then will the audience find out whether the prediction came true.
Alan is also doing a Friday performance at the theater.
A Salem native, Alan (his real name is Greenamyer) was an athlete at both Salem High School (football, basketball) and Youngstown State University (track).
For the past five years, he has been working full-time as a magician-illusionist. He does both close-up magic and larger illusions — like making a mini-motorcycle appear — in his shows, while mixing in comedy and elements of mentalism.
He’s worked everything from birthday parties with a dozen people to corporate meetings with 1,500. Alan has also done stints on cruise ships and clubs, and even entertained the Indianapolis Colts and then-coach Tony Dungy at a Cleveland hotel.
Youngstown audiences might have caught him at First Night on New Year’s Eve.
Alan described his act in a recent interview with The Vindicator.
“A lot of magicians do trick after trick, and that’s why magic is not taken seriously as an art,” he said. Alan talks about his own life in his act, mixing in one-liners. He also interacts with the audience via mentalism; it’s a way of using powers of observation to “read minds.”
Mentalism also helps him determine which illusions or tricks will go over best with his audiences. For example, when entertaining the Colts, he had one burly football player put a quarter in his fist. When he opened it, the quarter was bent in half — a feat of “strength” that went over well with the player’s teammates.
An October gig at a child’s birthday party in Avon Lake left Alan’s own jaw dropping.
“I pulled into a million-dollar house and was directed to the second floor of the basement — the first floor being occupied by a half court basketball court and a full-size gym,” he recalled. “I set my things up in a full movie room and performed for 10 young children. After the show I was directed upstairs to wait for my payment from the child’s father. Jamario Moon from the Cleveland Cavaliers came up and paid me before I left.”
Alan’s fascination with magic and sleight-of-hand has its roots in the card games he played with his grandmother as a boy. “She taught me how to cheat at cards,” he said. These days, Alan is a master with a deck of cards and can run off card trick after card trick.
“I used to sit up at YSU and do tricks, and people would gather around and watch,” said Alan, who was an exercise major (“That means I can be unemployed and in shape at the same time,” he cracked). He also used to entertain at fraternity parties. “There was a lot of drinking, so if I screwed up, nobody noticed,” he said.
In 2008, Alan received three awards from the Magic Alliance of Eastern States: Best Comedy-Magic, Best Close-Up Magic and Best Stage Magic. It was the first time one person won all three awards.
His shows this weekend will each be about 90 minutes, with intermission, and will include a strait-jacket escape. Alan’s girlfriend, Leslie Strain of Alliance, will serve as his assistant.